Sector 17

Jake Landry stood atop his sleek maintenance vehicle, enjoying the rare moment of solitude as he watched his colleague stride away to test the integrity of the water pipes, antlike against the vast curvature of the tunnel. As always when inspecting the access points that led to the Ark – necessarily built deep under the blasted earth – he marvelled at the sheer scale of the construction. It was hard to appreciate the sheer size of the manmade feature when you were surrounded by the bustle-chatter of six million other people – now all that remained of the noble species homo sapiens sapiens.

Sector 17 looked good so far; all current readings indicated that the air was clear and contaminant free, no visible damage or seepage. All the maintenance crew remembered what happened in Sector 4 – a small and seemingly innocuous puddle of water had formed. The Sector 4 boys had shrugged it off, logged it and waited to see if the puddle would go away by itself or grow into an actual problem for them. The water had indeed gone away, but it had left a toxic and radioactive stew behind it – a stew responsible within three weeks for the painful and unsightly deaths of everyone who came into even second-hand contact with Sector 4. The loss of two hundred thousand Arkadians hit the survivors hard: it had taken five years to get the population back up and to retrieve most of the skills lost. Lessons had been learned, and now every little anomaly was logged, inspected, tested and sorted in double-quick time.

The immense tunnel disappeared into the far distance, its wide bore lit up faintly by the welcoming lights of Arkadia. Jake shivered a little, as he stared towards humanity’s new home, remembering the wide-open blue skies of the past. It had taken an asteroid to get mammals out in the open, he mused, ironic that another was the reason they had to return to the safety of a world underground.

‘Jake, old buddy,’ his earpiece crackled gently as Barty Frost spoke.

Jake turned to look at his partner, ‘What’s up, friend?’ he queried.

‘Just making sure you’re awake, you haven’t moved in five minutes,’

‘What’re you watching me for? Aintcha got things to do down there?’

Barty’s laughter rang through clearly and Jake couldn’t help but grin. ‘Yeah, it all looks good down here, I’m just waiting on the confirmation of the purification results for water and air, then we can get outta here and go grab a cuppa joe.’